Death Of The Devil
by rationalbookworm
Summary: AU. Dean is gone and Sam's fighting just to live day by day. But when he stumbles upon a familiar bar, broken and bleeding, he gets the second chance he didn't know he was looking for. Sam/OC Dean/OC Castiel/OC READ PREQUELS FIRST!
1. The Devil's Trap

**Again, this isn't edited, but I have less than an hour before I have to be at work, and I wanted to get this out before then. This is the main story I promised from Heiress Of Illusion and Hell On Heels. It takes place after Dean gets sent to hell but before he comes back. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or anything else recognizable. I make no profit from writing this.**

Sam hissed in pain as he slid into the dark alley, keeping hidden from the rowdy drunks spilling out from the bar across the street. The last thing he needed was to be spotted and carted off to a hospital. He racked his brain for where he had parked the Impala but after the disastrous encounter with a large vampire coven left him injured and alone, he was forced to run as quickly as possible. There hadn't been time to get to the Impala. He'd just ran in a random direction and now he was lost.

He'd been dodging attacks from monsters and demons alike for months now, everything seeming to bare down on him a million times worse since Dean's passing. Then there had been that run in with Ruby, who had been adamant that she could help him resurrect his brother. He was tempted to join her, he couldn't lie, but a voice in his head that was far too much like Dean for comfort had practically yelled at him not to trust her. Ever since he'd been forced to dodge her too. It was just getting to be too much. He needed an escape but didn't trust going to Bobby's in case he brought along whatever plague was on his ass this week.

"Oh, come on Piper!" one of the men slurred, drawing the only living Winchester's attention. He leaned cautiously forward, biting his tongue against the pain flashing through his abdomen to see the three drunks swaying precariously in the middle of the road as a smallish woman stood in the doorway of the bar, hands firmly on her hips and a scowl on her face.

"It's already past closing," she scolded. "If you three don't leave now, I'm calling the cops."

With that, the woman vanished back inside, leaving the drunks to curse and stumble to a car parked at the curb. They were clearly all too drunk to drive, but that wasn't Sam's concern. What was, was the large painted sign hanging above the bar's entrance, just below the second story windows where the owner probably lived. _The Devil's Trap_. Though it had been a while since the Mystery Spot and the endless Tuesdays, Sam still remembered every bit of it. He especially remembered one thing in particular. A small raven haired woman who had stopped the trickster's game and mooched a ride from Dean. They had driven her to New Orleans, dropped her off right in front of the bar he was now staring at.

"The fuck!" one of the drunks yelled, kicking the car.

"Wha'?" his buddy questioned from his slumped position on the ground.

"My keys 're gone!" he growled. "Bitch took my keys!"

"Pipe always takes keys," the last guy slurred. "Calls cabs."

"I don' wanna cab. I wan' my fuckin' keys."

The guy huffed and stomped shakily back up to the bar's door as his buddies weakly protested. His meaty fist pounded on the door, visibly shaking the glass as he shouted for Piper to open the door. Sam sighed, easing down so that he could sit on the ground. This could be a while. Once he had recognized the bar he had known Piper would willingly take him in and patch him up. She had mentioned on the long road trip home that she did it all the time for passing hunters, and made it clear the Winchesters were always welcome. But he couldn't exactly march up to the door, bleeding profusely from his shoulder and sporting at least one cracked rib. Not to mention his mincemeat face. It'd be a miracle if she even managed to recognize him.

Ten minutes later a black and white was easing up to the curb, lights flashing. Sam was a little amazed at how fast they'd gotten there. Cops, especially in big cities, weren't exactly known for their speed. Drunk number one cursed and tried to run away, only to fall flat on his face on the cement. The other two wisely stayed where they had collapsed on the ground beside the car. One cop got out and collected the idiot still kissing pavement while the other went to talk to Piper who had once more emerged from the bar, shaking her head in disgust at the drunks.

After that it took an amazingly short amount of time to finish up. The two non-combative drunks crawled into the cab that had showed up a minute after the cops with minimal fuss while the other got shut up in the back of the cop car. The longest activity was the cop taking Piper's statement. From his stance and the leering laugh that floated over on the wind, Sam guessed he was more flirting than working. Explained how he got there so quickly. Piper looked less than amused, arms crossed as she leaned away and looked anywhere but at the police officer. At one point her eyes traveled to the alley where Sam sat, only to snap back to him a second later. He sighed, glad she had spotted him, and raised his hand in a weak attempt at a wave before it fell limp to his side once more. His eyes drifted closed as exhaustion finally caught up with him. It was stupid to pass out in an alley while he was bleeding to death, but he really didn't have the energy or the will to get up again.

A small warm hand on his shoulder had him blinking sluggishly up at the soft features above him.

"Oh, Sammy," her voice was quiet and warm, wrapping around him like a blanket. He didn't even mind that she'd called him Sammy. "What happened to you?"

He grunted as she pulled lightly on his arm, getting him to sit up more so she could slip her arm around his waist and help him stand shakily. He couldn't help but put most of his weight on her. His legs felt almost like Jell-O and refused to work properly. She made it a total of five steps out of the alley before she had to stop, huffing out a breath from the effort.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Not your fault you're so big," she repositioned, grabbing his wrist with her free hand and gripping his waist more surely. "Actually I blame my father."

His brow furrowed, maybe he was hearing things, "Your father?"

"Mm-hmm," she hummed. "Where did you think I got my short stature from?"

He huffed out a small chuckle, making her smile up at him briefly.

"Luckily he also gave me a little of his powers, so this shouldn't be too bad of a walk."

Suddenly he felt himself being supported much better. Her strength seemed to triple in the space of a second, allowing her to force march him across the street and into the open door of her bar without incident. She dumped him as gently as possible into a chair next to a table with a first aid kit ready and waiting. He forced himself to sit up straighter, be more alert as she hovered beside him.

"I'm gonna have to get this shirt off," she told him, already undoing the buttons of his plaid shirt. "I need to check the damage."

Sam nodded and with a grunt, managed to help her ease the fabric off his shoulders so he was just in his white undershirt. That would prove more difficult to get off, but they managed in between some colorful language on his part and a few apologizes on hers. Once all his layers were out of the way, she took a step back, sucking in a shocked breath. He would have groaned if he didn't think it would only end up causing pain. He knew women found him attractive, he wasn't an idiot, but he had really hoped she wouldn't be _that_ affected by it.

"What _happened_?" Piper whispered in horror, her fingers lightly tracing a pattern of bruises on his side.

His head snapped up a little too quickly. As he waited for the dizziness to fade, he tried to reevaluate the situation. Apparently she hadn't been noticing his body, just the damage done to it. She leaned back to look him in the eyes, waiting for an answer to her question.

"Vampires," he groaned as her fingers accidently pushed a little too hard on his ribs.

"Sorry," she muttered bringing her hand back so she could dig her phone out of her jeans pocket. "Why is it always vampires? Ever since Anne Rice wrote about vampires in New Orleans, they come flocking in. It's ridiculous."

He chuckled lightly at her small rant and watched as she tapped out a number on her phone and laid it on the table. A sound of ringing drifted up from the speaker while Piper moved to checked his shoulder wound which had slowed to a small trickle of blood.

"I'll clean this out and sew it up for you," she said, digging through the first aid kit as she spoke.

"Thanks."

"_Yellow!_" a female voice called out when the ringing stopped.

"Nat, I need a favor," Piper answered. "I have an injured hunter on my hands and I need you to pick up his car for him."

"_Cool,_" there was the sound of a door opening and closing in the background. "_Where, and what kind of car_?"

"It's a '67 Chevy Impala. Judging by the major beat down I'm currently cleaning up, I'm guessing you'll find it near that big vampire coven we located down by the docks a couple weeks ago."

There was a beat of silence, "_Shit, he went down there by himself?_"

"Come by and pick up the keys," Piper ordered instead of answering the question.

"_Sir, yes sir,_" her voice turned playful. "_How quiet am I keeping this, by the way?_"

"Silence will fall when a good man goes to war."

Sam's brow furrowed at the sentence. It made no sense, but the other woman seemed to understand.

"_Right. I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I remember nothing. None of this ever happened. Who is this Winchester person you speak of?_"

Piper chuckled, "I'll see you in a bit."

She hung up the phone and gathered the needle and thread from the first aid. So, not your average kit then. She soaked both in medical alcohol as she slipped on a pair of latex gloves, then used a lighter from her pocket to burn off any leftover germs from the needle.

"I don't have anything for pain that will work fast enough, or won't thin your blood out too much so you're gonna have to bear with me on this."

He nodded once, bracing himself against the table as the needle began to work its way through his skin. It hurt in some places and was just uncomfortable in others, but she worked quickly, finishing up faster than he had imagined she'd be able to. A cold sweat had broken out over his skin and he could feel himself shaking slightly. The need to pass out was slowly taking over again, but he held back, not wanting to drop unconscious right at the table. He felt something cold and wet brush over the newly stitched injury but barely registered the stinging of alcohol. It was while Piper was placing a clean strip of gauze over the wound that footsteps began to sound down the hall leading to the back.

"Nat?" she called.

"Hey, hey, hey," a voice answered as a tall slim woman stepped around the counter. She was wearing black skinny jeans and a pink tank top that matched her short bubblegum pink hair. She had sharp features, her face all cheekbones and lips, with soft brown eyes that sparkled with mischief.

"Wow," Nat muttered, stopping when Sam's huddled frame came into view. "You looked like you've been run over by a eighteen wheeler a few hundred times."

"Thanks for that visual Nat," Piper rolled her eyes, tossing her friend the keys to the Impala. Sam blinked. When had she taken those? "Just pick up the car and bring it back here. Park it out back."

"Sure, sure. I know the drill." Without another word the girl turned on her heel and walked back the way she'd come.

"Come on," Piper said, easing her harm back around his waist and lifting him to his feet. Again her strength seemed abnormal for one so much smaller than him. "Let's get you up to my spare room. You can crash there until you're better."

He shuffled along, gripping the railing when they made it to the stairs, "You said something earlier…something about silence and a good man going to war…"

"Silence will fall when a good man goes to war?" He nodded. "It was just a Doctor Who reference. I'll tell you about it when you're not likely to pass out at any second."

He chuckled briefly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed, even a little. Or the last time he actually felt safe and taken care of. Long before Dean's deal, that was for sure.


	2. Hell's Bells

**This chapter has references to the prequel Hell On Heels, so if you haven't read that you probably should. You should read both if you haven't realized by now despite me saying it before, but yeah...**

Red, orange, yellow, and even some blue flames licked up the side of the stones she stood on. Her normally creamy skin was all but covered in soot and grime. She couldn't even imagine the state her hair must be in. Her ears rang from the tortured howls of the damned. Despite the blistering heat that pressed in from all sides, a sort of ice had long settled in the pit of her stomach. She would never get used to hell, and she really didn't want to. To grow used to it would to become the monster so many thought she already was.

Closing her eyes, Skylar inhaled deeply, studiously ignoring the burn on the inside of her nostrils and the stench of burning flesh. Now wasn't the time to linger on all the things she hated about this place. She couldn't change it. But she could change the horrible thing she had done. Logically, she knew it wasn't really her fault. It would have happened even if she wasn't the one to strike the deal. But a large part of her still felt incredibly guilty about sending Dean Winchester to hell. Even more so when she had ran into an old friend.

Piper was different. Different in the very-not-human-but-sort-of-close-kind-of-like-Skylar kind of way. They had met as teens and despite their fathers getting along like a house on fire, had become fast friends. Mainly Facebook friends for a long time, but after the whole Dean situation, Skylar had wanted – no, needed – to get away for a while. She just needed to forget. Mardi Gras had seemed the perfect opportunity.

It didn't take long for her to stumble into a bar called _The Devil's Trap_. It was just too ironic to pass up. The large red devil's trap painted on the back wall just made it a million times better, even if the demon inside her hissed at it and cringed away, urging her to leave immediately. With practiced ease, she ignored it in favor of plopping down on one of the few free stools in front of the bar, only to get the shock of her life at seeing Piper serving up beers and mixed cocktails.

Their friendship was easy. They fell together like sisters within moments and, once the bar was closed up for the night, Skylar couldn't hold back anything. She told the other woman everything that had happened with Dean Winchester, everything she was guilty of. Piper had sighed and nodded and commented that she'd wondered when it was going to happen. Then it was Piper's turn to confess.

Piper's father was widely known as Loki, the Norse God of mischief. What wasn't as well known, was that Loki was just a cover. Her father was actually the Archangel, Gabriel. He had left heaven and gone into hiding. Piper skimmed the details, probably not wanting to get too far into why her father left, but it wasn't hard to figure out it had something to do with Lucifer, or that the other angels – who were all against mixing with humans, especially romantically – were the reason Piper lost her mother and sister.

But what really surprised Skylar was when Piper changed the subject (not the surprising part) to God. Her Grandfather. The half-angel actually had frequent conversations with the all-powerful being, just as her father had while in heaven. God had a plan, it seemed. A plan to take back the control over heaven that he seemed to have lost while he was enjoying time on earth amongst the humans he cared so much for.

His angels weren't listening to him anymore. Oh, there were still some loyal followers, but they were being silenced by those higher up who were claiming to still be in contact with him, all the while believing he had abandoned them. They knew his fondness for humans and were – to put it lightly – jealous. So like little children, they were throwing a tantrum. A tantrum so big it would bring on an apocalypse. Everything would be wiped out if certain people, certain beings, didn't step up to the plate and fix it. Piper was only part of that. She had her own orders. Orders that she couldn't discuss with Skylar except to say it did involve the Winchesters. But the truly surprising part was that Skylar was a piece of the puzzle as well. She may have sent Dean to hell, but she'd be his salvation in the end. He would need someone who understood what he went through when he returned from hell.

Which brings us back to Skylar, standing in the middle of the pit, surrounded by the damned and their tormentors, scanning the horizon for one familiar puppy dog face. She knew hell well enough. Her father was the King of the Crossroads, after all. But to truly understand everything that Dean went through, to be able to help him when he got out, she had to see it for herself.

Jumping off her perch, she cautiously picked her way through the torture racks, ignoring any of the demons who called out to her. She was semi-recognizable. Some had no doubt glimpsed her or at the very least heard rumors about her, but none really knew her. Crowley, her adoptive father, didn't mind her helping out on the crossroads every once in a while. More often than not he encouraged it. Socializing amongst other demons, however, was a big no-no. Not that Skylar minded. She really didn't want to get to know any demons. There were only a handful who her father occasionally came in contact with that she'd met briefly, and she couldn't exactly say she was glad of the acquaintance.

Unfortunately, she stumbled across one of them in her search for Dean Winchester.

"Well, well, well," the annoyingly nasal voice called. "If it isn't the Princess of the Crossroads."

Skylar didn't bother turning to face the demon, instead keeping her eyes scanning the faces of the damned she passed. She was sure to get nightmares from this, but she didn't have any other option.

"Meg," she greeted as she passed a demon slicing up a rail-thin woman. Looked like a junky. "I thought you were dead."

She scoffed, "Of course not. I'm just waiting for another chance to climb back out and get into another meat suit."

Skylar rolled her eyes, "I really hate that term. _Meat suit_. Especially now. All I can think of is Lady Gaga's dress made of meat."

Meg didn't comment. Probably didn't know what the hell she was rambling about. Skylar liked to do that to demons. Kept them from lingering too long. Regrettably Meg had grown used to it over the years. She was hardly fazed by it anymore.

"What are you doing down here, anyway?" Meg growled. "You're one of the few who can easily come and go. And you always complain about being down here."

Skylar smiled. Sometimes she really loved her extra gifts, even if she still didn't really understand how she got them.

"None of your business, Meg," Skylar waved her off. "Why don't you go…do whatever it is you do when you're trapped here. I'm busy."

Meg took a step nearer, only to freeze as a low growl made the ground beneath their feet vibrate. Her eyes widened as she slowly backed away. Skylar turned her head slightly to see her father's personal hellhound stalk around the corner, saliva and blood dripping from its bared fangs. Thick, matted black fur stood on end as red eyes glowed ominously. His humongous paw stamped the ground, shaking the world as bad as an earthquake. Meg gulped and looked between the Crossroads Princess and the hellhound. Skylar raised an eyebrow. Did the demon really think she could mess with her while one of her bodyguards was present? Apparently not as not a second later the demon had turned and run as fast as she could away from the area.

"Good boy!" Skylar called as the hellhound trotted up to her, tongue lolling out and making it look much more like an adorable puppy than a spawn of hell. "We're gonna have to get you a treat later, aren't we?" she asked in what was unmistakably a baby voice.

The hellhound barked, playfully nipping at her hand as she scratched behind his ears. She tilted her head in thought. A hellhound may be demonic, but it was still a hound. And hounds were natural hunters. She knew for a fact this was one that had helped drag Dean into hell for Lilith (that bitch), so he'd already know the man's scent. A small smile crossed her features. Finding Dean just got a whole lot easier.

She dropped to her knees in front of the dog, making it at least a head taller than her, "I need some help. I have to find someone. Someone you know."

It yipped and wagged its tail in answer. Good enough.

"Find Dean Winchester," she ordered, standing again. The hound blinked at her momentarily before tilting its head back and taking in long drags of air. After a moment it barked and skipped away a few feet, stopping to look over his shoulder with one front paw raised. Skylar smiled widely as she hurried after it.

They ran past demons and tortured souls, maneuvering around them as easily as if they weren't even there until they reached the very heart of hell. On a large torture rack hung a man, head hanging low against his bare chest. Cuts and bruises were the least of this man's problems if the two-by-four sticking out of his stomach was anything to go by. A table was set up nearby with various torture instruments set out. Whoever was working here wasn't present (probably on their version of a coffee break) so Skylar only hesitated a second before creeping forward. The man groaned lowly, head lolling to the side until he could look up at her through his lashes. His cheeks were stained with tears and blood, his lips dry and cracked.

There was no way he should have been able to speak judging by the dark hand-shaped bruises that circled his neck, but he managed to breathe out one word, "You."

Skylar was used to getting what she wanted, but this was one thing she wished she hadn't. She had found Dean Winchester and the guilt was eating her alive.


End file.
